I'd ask a pharmacist about drugs and side effects and interactions way before I'd ask any doctor. The amount of pharmacology doctors are instructed about in school is woefully ... pitiful.

Well, I would think that a psychiatrist would know more than a doctor or a pharmacist in general since this is their focus. The problem with medication like lamictal is that it can be all over the place ; insomnia is not a severe side effect, meaning that while it is a common one, it shouldn't prevent you from sleeping at all for many days in a row. You should tell your psychiatrist about it so that he can switch you to something else if you really think that it is your medication that causes your insomnia.

I mean, if you google it it will pretty much bring -every- side effects you can possibility think of but that's pretty common because they need to disclaim every possible side effects.

A psychiatrist is a doctor.

Although I'd like to hear the reason they went with a second line anticonvulsant instead of going with lithium and then valproate.

He doesn't have insomnia because of lamictal. He has insomnia because lamictal obviously isn't working. I.e. He's still manic.

I'd ask a pharmacist about drugs and side effects and interactions way before I'd ask any doctor. The amount of pharmacology doctors are instructed about in school is woefully ... pitiful.

Well, I would think that a psychiatrist would know more than a doctor or a pharmacist in general since this is their focus. The problem with medication like lamictal is that it can be all over the place ; insomnia is not a severe side effect, meaning that while it is a common one, it shouldn't prevent you from sleeping at all for many days in a row. You should tell your psychiatrist about it so that he can switch you to something else if you really think that it is your medication that causes your insomnia.

I mean, if you google it it will pretty much bring -every- side effects you can possibility think of but that's pretty common because they need to disclaim every possible side effects.

A psychiatrist is a doctor.

Although I'd like to hear the reason they went with a second line anticonvulsant instead of going with lithium and then valproate.

He doesn't have insomnia because of lamictal. He has insomnia because lamictal obviously isn't working. I.e. He's still manic.

Well, it started out as insomnia, and my mood has been progressively weirder since I started taking the lamictal, first it caused me insomnia, then I started getting more common manic-feelingness, then I'd get the total numbness, and now I've just been kind of bouncing around extremely dark depression and what I think(?) is hypomania with my usual baseline being a kind of tired resignation/contentment. The insomnia started about a day or two after I started taking the medicine and persisted the five or six days I continued taking it, so I stopped taking it and organized a visit with my psychiatrist who told me that five or six days isn't enough time to determine if my medicine was causing my insomnia, even though it stopped about a day or two after I had stopped taking the medicine, so I've been taking the medicine since then and my moods have been increasingly 'regular' in the sense that I'm not cycling rapidly between rage/sadness/euphoria and I'm just generally in a state of placidity or contentment and the insomnia has been a regular fixture. Sometimes the insomnia causes me to feel exhausted, other times I get two hours of sleep and I feel fine the entire day (though I sometimes doze off).

I am also curious why lithium wasn't a first choice? Or lithium in combination with something else?

Also, I don't know how much dope you were smoking before and how much you're smoking now, but have you considered that maybe your significant cutting back could be affecting your sleep? Although if you're sleeping very little and you're not -tired- from the lack of sleep, it sounds much more like hypomania/mania and not so much to do with the decrease in weed.

While it -has- been reported, I think it's very rare that lamotrigine induces mania?

After the disaster that was me and Paxil, I ended up on Lamictal very soon after it was approved for bipolar treatment. I took it for four years before I told the psychiatrist I wanted off and I haven't been on anything for my bipolar since then.

It sounds like you're in the midst of a mixed episode, so lithium and/or valproate, unless you a) have some contraindication you haven't mentioned or b) have failed therapy on one or both, previously, and you haven't mentioned it.

And I'm noticing as I get older I'm more disposed toward extreme shifts in mood that I always figured was just me being more and more "fed up" but it could just be untreated bipolar disorder getting worse as I get older.

However, I guess I do have something to add: I can relate to a lot of what you're going through. Insomnia isn't too much of a problem, this year, but when I have a good diet, it becomes a problem. The less I eat (too poor), the more tired I become, and it's usually fast food and crap.

I'm really curious what your diet is like, including drinks. I have a friend who has a lot of trouble with ADD, but he mellows out when he drinks a particular energy drink. Mellows out, but becomes morbid, and has intrusive thoughts. So, there's definitely a trade off.

Ultimately, if you ever get the money, I suggest visiting a nutritionist and getting them to do one of those tests on your hair, where they can tell you if are deficient in any key nutrients.

MeTekillot, I thought you mentioned at one point you're one of the older Arm players? By older I mean your age, not how many years you've been playing. Could it be possible that, combined with your usual chronic mental health issues, you're also experiencing the results of a hormonal shift? If your estrogen and testosterone levels are out of whack it could upset the whole chemical balance of your mind vs. your meds. If you haven't already, definitely get them checked.

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Talia said: Notice to all: Do not mess with Lizzie's GDB. She will cut you.Delirium said: Notice to all: do not mess with Lizzie's soap. She will cut you.

Got him confused for someone else then. Regardless, if his mood swings and sleeplessness have become worse, he should still make sure his hormones are doing what they're supposed to do, in the right proportions.

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Talia said: Notice to all: Do not mess with Lizzie's GDB. She will cut you.Delirium said: Notice to all: do not mess with Lizzie's soap. She will cut you.

Thank you, Lizzie. I'm not going to even visit a website called 'quackwatch', but I will, however, take your word for it. You don't seem the type to dismiss something potentially helpful offhand, without researching it first. Too bad about the hair thing, too. That would be really useful.

MeTekillot, I don't know what to tell you, but after finding out that you're in your twenties, my best advice is to invest in bitcoin. I read somewhere it was a good idea, and the poster seemed more credible than me.

MeTekillot, I thought you mentioned at one point you're one of the older Arm players? By older I mean your age, not how many years you've been playing. Could it be possible that, combined with your usual chronic mental health issues, you're also experiencing the results of a hormonal shift? If your estrogen and testosterone levels are out of whack it could upset the whole chemical balance of your mind vs. your meds. If you haven't already, definitely get them checked.

Every psychiatric diagnosis (especially bipolar disorder) requires that you rule out organic disease before establishing the diagnosis. Since he's already said he's seeing a psychiatrist (doctor), and he's already taking Lamictal, the safe assumption is that organic causes have already been ruled out, if we assume that his doctor is practicing according to standard guidelines, anyway.

Which...I suppose could be questionable, given that with the information we have, the Lamictal prescription seems odd.

“When I was a fighting man, the kettle-drums they beat;The people scattered gold-dust before my horse’s feet;But now I am a great king, the people hound my trackWith poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.”